Failing miserably on the home front, UK prime minister Keir Starmer is this week hoping to instead establish himself as a solid leader on the world stage.
On Thursday, February 27th, he hopes to bring Donald Trump around to the idea of America providing a ‘backstop’ to European ‘peacekeeping’ troops in Ukraine. Where these troops will come from remains a lingering issue.
Trying to beat his British counterpart to the position of Trump’s man in Europe, France’s Emmanuel Macron held his own talks with the president on Monday. If these are anything to go by, Starmer should expect to return home later with nothing.
In a debrief with European Union leaders on Wednesday, Macron “said that Trump did not give any clear promises regarding the backstop,” according to a Brussels diplomat speaking to Politico adding that “strategic ambiguity on this question remains.”
Fresh from the meeting, another EU official put it more bluntly:
This was a waste of time.
Starmer is no more likely to achieve success than Macron, having spent at least the past fortnight making it clear he knows he has the weaker hand in talks with Trump by refusing to criticise any of the president’s actions with which he obviously disagrees.
Ahead of the meeting, Starmer expressed his concern that
if there is a ceasefire without a backstop, it will simply give [Vladimir Putin] the opportunity to wait and to come again because his ambition in relation to Ukraine is pretty obvious, I think, for all to see.
The fact that British and French peacekeeping troops would depend so heavily on U.S. backing is, of course, a clear indication of Europe’s weakness, in spite of all the grandstanding.
Trump also set the scene for further failing on Starmer’s behalf:
I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much. We’re going to have Europe do that.
Indeed, the president has made it clear he lacks interest in anything both Starmer and Macron have to say on Ukraine, given that—in his view—they have failed to do “anything” to stop the war.
European leaders, including Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO chief Mark Rutte, will convene in London on Sunday, when Starmer will follow-up on his meeting with Trump. It is quite possible that this second gathering will also be just as short—or equally as fruitless.
